Self Repairing Concrete

The last thing that comes to your mind when you think of a slab of concrete is smart green choice and somehow that is exactly what Henk Jonkers has come up with. In an interesting science project conducted in the Technical University Delft, in the Netherlands Jonkers has come up with bio- concrete.

Microorganisms are added in the concrete mix that can actually fix the cracks that appear in the concrete over time. The bacteria is of a type which eats calcium lactate and excretes calcite which fills up the crack. The spores of this bacteria can lie dormant for 50 years till water enters the material.

The bacteria lies in a dormant form within the concrete in the highly alkaline environment of the material and becomes active when the material cracks enough to let through water. Now it begins to multiply and grow and its excretion is the material that becomes the filling repair of the crack that was formed.

Is it totally ingenious or totally far fetched? The trials conducted by Jonkers have been successful enough and may be the concrete may come into commercial production in the not so distant future. Some more experimentation may find additional uses for the main product of this science project.